


It Holds

by karahboou



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Epilogue, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karahboou/pseuds/karahboou
Summary: Oneshot. Inquisitor Lavellan faces the aftermath of ending the Inquisition and the effects of the events of Trespasser.





	It Holds

Skyhold is empty. The long stone hallways are silent now, no feet scuffle over the plush Orlesian runners, no jubilant chatter or worried whispers echo towards the high arched ceilings. Only thick, golden sunlight fills the once-well-loved rooms, pouring into all the afterthoughts and spaces left behind with dust motes dancing through the sweet summer air. A quiet settles that is overwhelmingly still, the last of the caravans have taken away the remainder of the claimed possessions, and the abandoned things stand silent vigil to a castle in the sky that is all that holds true of the mighty Inquisition. The wake of an era is somehow gentle and serene.

But there are still two heartbeats that linger. Rumpled bedsheets in the west tower Inquisitor’s quarters, the teacups with soft brown rims at their bottoms left at the end of the banquet table in the great hall, the two sets of footprints that leave behind impressions in the damp earth of the rain-soaked garden soil.

Sivelle stands in the center of the courtyard. The fading afternoon light is too warm on her cheeks. Her loose left sleeve ribbons and flutters and curls around itself as the wind picks up slightly. Her right hand is curled tightly around the smooth black lacquered wood of her staff. She takes a deep, slow breath.

It has been two weeks since she saw off the last of the stragglers. Cassandra had sat with her for a long time on the battlements, both of them silent as they watched Scout Harding wave from the drawbridge.

_"It really is… over." The seeker’s large brown eyes were unguarded and betrayed the nostalgic bitterness that she knew they both tasted._

_"Yes", she had said, brushing her now long hair behind her ears and feeling the bite of wind on their tips. The reflection of the snow off the snowbanks was almost blinding and she had to squint when she turned to look at her friend._

_"You and Cullen will stay, then?" Cassandra had smiled softly then, the romantic was peeking through the tough exterior._

_"I have been traveling my entire life… I am almost tired of it. When I was Inquisitor I quite literally saw the world." she allowed herself a small smile, "I need to rest. I need be away from the world for a while. It will be fine without my meddling for once."_

_"You deserve it. Remember to write me, otherwise I will miss you." Cassandra pulled her in for a tight hug and then stood with an oddly serious expression, "Maker watch over you, Inquisitor."_

_"I am not—"_

_"You will always be the Inquisitor, no matter how much Thedas tries to ignore this." Cassandra calls behind her as she descends down the narrow stone steps._

And the moments of the following weeks in an abandoned Skyhold with Cullen, taking tea in the mornings and sitting in the gardens at night while she watches him pray, they are some of the happiest of her life.

Once, a loud, booming laugh splits through the silence as a copper-haired figure looks up sheepishly with burnt blackberry tart splashed across the front of her shirt. A sound that the walls have never heard before.

Another time, soft singing drifts through the stairwells from the highest balcony of the old library tower. A smaller figure enveloped by a larger one, blanket falling off bare shoulders that are peppered with rough stubbled kisses.

Most recently the slap of footsteps down the stairs, auburn locks streaming behind her as he chases her and she shouts out the lines of an unfinished love poem. She reaches the end of the written words and looks to him for the rest. He flushes pink and mutters “…and I love you more than words can say.” and she kisses him silly.

But throughout there is something that aches inside her. It drones in undertones through her waking thoughts and burrows in her dreams. As she stands rooted to the ground in the center of the great stone castle at dusk, she feels it surfacing.

Her shoulders are square as she studies the ivy that climbs anywhere it can reach, up the walls of the tavern, around the steps leading up to the main keep, through the grass at the base of the great gate. Her singular grip tightens so much it is almost painful.

She doesn’t start when soft hands come to rest on her hips as she lets herself be pulled into his chest. Cullen’s lips are warm, dry, and comforting at her temple and she closes her eyes and tries to relax into him. She can feel the question on his mouth. He knows her too well and she knows he can sense the bubbling agitation within her.

She turns around sharply and meets his honey-brown gaze, flinching slightly at the worry she notices, “Spar with me.”

He stares at her evenly, “I suppose you weren’t just holding your staff for the fun of it.” There is a strange tone in his little quip that is colored with unasked questions. But he understands. He doesn’t ask them.

“Humor me, Cullen.” she says and he nods haltingly, then disappears into the armory to retrieve his sword and shield.

When he returns, there is already magic crackling in the air, the grass by her bare feet peppered with white frost. Her breath catches in her throat slightly when a wide, competitive grin spreads across his face. She lets the magic flood through her arm towards the cool wood of her staff, a warmth that is fluid and exhilarating and too long untapped. They are both still for the length of a breath.

The moment he steps forward and the tip of his blade edges upwards in preparation to lunge, she throws her weight into a wide swing of her staff, ice spikes bursting upwards from the soil towards his feet. Cullen wrests his shield upwards and there is an explosive clang of metal where a spear of ice shatters above his head.

Her breathing is already labored and her lone arm is burning with the weight of her staff heavy in her palm. She grits her teeth against sudden rush of vitriolic anger. She shouts as she blocks several blows he aims at her side and twirls her staff above her head to bring down a hail of ice shards as she whips in a circle around to his back. There are tears in her eyes as she fights to keep her grip on the wood, slick with the sweat of her palms.

He swivels to parry a lavender bolt of energy and sidesteps a hard jab with the blade at the end of her staff. He ducks beneath the agonized swing of the other end, stepping back rather than throwing his blade out toward her ankles.

Her brows knit together and the anger comes out in a venomous shout, “Venavis! Do not go easy on me!”

She forces Cullen to take two steps back as she ignites two glyphs with silvery magic that she has drawn with her feet. The explosive crackle of fire suddenly ripples into the air and plumes of flame circle him as he barely lifts his shield in time. Her face is glowing with pain and frustration and her arms are shaking. She swings the fire like a whip, which is cut into two by the glint of his sword, but the momentum of her staff catches her off guard as she fires off another attack and she staggers. His eyes glint when he sees the opening and rushes forward to swing hard at her.

The sword connects with the rod of her staff and her arm is screaming in pain as she heaves all of her remaining strength into pushing him back. The magic feels like excruciating burning, fire in her veins as Sivelle lets out a wordless roar and ice explodes in either direction across the ground and her staff goes flying from her grasp. She feels her legs give out beneath her and her shoulder blades painfully come into contact with the dirt.

She stays there, staring at the tip of his blade which points between her brows. The sky is pink.

Cullen immediately throws aside the sword and it nestles in the grass with a dull thud. He makes no move forward and his eyes are burning with apology, but there is no trace of confusion anymore.

She thinks of the blackberry tart and the mess she made when she couldn’t balance it in one palm. The blanket she pulled around her left side to hide what was missing when they sat together on the balcony in the morning mist. The silly love poem she found when she couldn’t sleep because she felt pain where there was no flesh.

The reverie lasted for as long as it could. She is crippled. And now they both can plainly see it.

She digs her elbow into the ground and forces herself into a sitting position, pulling her knees into her chest. Cullen kneels in front of her, waiting.

“I know what I’ve been doing here.” she bites her lip hard to stem the stinging flood of tears, “I’ve been hiding.” She is deflated and infuriated all at once.

He places a hand on her cheek and she lets the tears fall and pool where his pam cradles her flushed skin, “We’re not supposed to need to hide anymore.”

“After Solas, I thought remaining where I was strong would make me feel more complete.” she said icily, “unchanged.”

He pauses for a moment, pushing her long coppery hair away from her face. His fingertips lingered at the tip of her ear. She can see the knot in his brow and the characteristic downturn of his mouth and she knows he is struggling to put together his thoughts. But she does not get the hesitant, broken string of indecision. Just a single, unfaltering sentence.

“You are not less.”

She feels something inside her crumbling at his sincerity, “Cassandra still called me Inquisitor when she left. But I am not. And I never will be again.”

“You are not less.” he repeats it, his hand drifting to her shoulder and down to where her elbow cuts short.

“And yet I am! It is not my choice no matter if I had chosen to continue the Inquisiton! I can never move forward just like the world cannot forget and they will see me and think of a protector.” she is gasping for air and gripping his wrist with her hand until his skin flushes in protest, “But not like this.— not so weak that I cannot even use my magic to even protect myself.”

“Sivelle, you are different. Maybe the world will see a different woman.” Cullen leans in and presses his forehead to hers, thumb gently stroking her arm, “…but you are not less.“

She opens her mouth to say something else but instead finally meets his gaze directly. Somehow it feels like enough. And she loves him for it.

She is afraid, but the sureness in his words and his expression keeps her together. Then haltingly, she presses her lips to his. They shift with the smallest smile under hers and he kisses her with a heartbreaking gentleness, fingertips lifting to and tracing the deep scar along her jawline. It makes her feel solid, real.

“You have never been anything short of the strongest, and admittedly destabilizing, force in my life.” he says through a reassuring chuckle, “Even at your most unsteady you are— incredible.”

She manages to smile at that, almost believe him, when she notices a thin red line along one of the wrinkles of his forehead. He raises his eyes up to follow her gaze and despite being unable to see the wound, winces as his eyebrows bunch up the skin, “You did get me, though, despite being what you decidedly call weak. And no one has in a long time. That is intimidating.”

She raises her touch to the scarlet wound and feels a gentle warmth blossom in her chest. She concentrates, tugging on the magic and watching her palm shimmer with a pearlescent green. The red disappears, new peachy skin appearing in its wake.

Cullen raises his hand quickly to join hers and his eyes widen as he feels his forehead, “I’ve never seen you use your magic to heal anyone—“

She reaches and grabs his hand in hers and kisses the heel of his palm, “I don’t think I ever have… I don’t know. Maybe its time to let myself be different.”

He helps her up and pulls her to his chest in a secure embrace, “That’s okay.”

She lets out a breath of relief, letting herself lean into him and listens to his steady heartbeat. She feels an unexpected laugh bubble past her lips.

“What is it?” Cullen’s lips are in her hair.

“I did get you, though.” she says resolutely.

She can feel his wide smile, “Yes. You did. And you always will.”

The sun sinks behind the battlements and cloaks the hold in an illusory darkness so that it is easy to miss these small reminders that this place is and still holds the very heart of the thing Thedas desperately seeks to forget. But it stands.

And so does she.

**Author's Note:**

> Elven Words:
> 
> Venavis - direct translation unknown but from context the way Abelas uses it in game I'm defining it as a stern "halt" or "stop"


End file.
